Various types of surface mount electrical connectors are known. As an example, a memory card connector device that comprises a contact block, having contacts held therein, provided in the rear portion of the connector body, and a slider that moves within the connector body in the forward-backward directions according to an insertion/removal operation of a card is known as described, for example, in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2004-207168 (FIGS. 5, 6). The contact block used in the connector device comprises a heart cam groove, which collaborates with a lock metal that moves therein to form what is known as the push-push connector. In the connector device, the tines of the contacts are protruding externally from the connector body so as to be surface mounted on a circuit board.
Recently, electronic devices, such as digital cameras, personal computers, and the like, have been made compact, and along with this, it is customary that electrical/electronic components incorporated in electronic devices are densely surface mounted on a circuit board. In order to densely surface mount electrical/electronic components, there has been a demand that the electrical/electronic components be made small so as to occupy small areas on the circuit board. This also allows the circuit board itself to be made compact.
In such a surface mount electrical connector, it is customary that the tines of contacts protrude externally from the connector and are soldered to the circuit board, as in the connector device disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2004-207168. Tines are disposed so as to have the same gap with respect to the circuit board. Generally, the gap is not greater than 0.1 mm. The gap between each tine and circuit board, however, may be increased due to warpage of a housing to which the contacts are attached. For example, too large of a gap causes improper soldering, and thereby a defective product is produced. In order to avoid this, and in order to obtain coplanarity of the tines with respect to the circuit board, the gap between each tine and the circuit board is detected, and if the gap is greater than a predetermined value, the tine is pressed toward the circuit board using a jig so that the gap falls within a predetermined range. Therefore, it is convenient for detecting the coplanarity and verification of proper soldering, if the tines are protruding externally from the connector holding the contacts. Further, the protrusion of the tines may facilitate correction of the coplanarity. The protrusion of the tines, however, poses a problem that the area of the circuit board occupied by the connector is increased.
The present invention has been developed in view of the circumstances described above, and it is an object of the present invention to provide a compact surface mount electrical connector which requires a small area on the circuit board, yet allows tine coplanarity adjustment.